1. Introductions

A brief explanation of what your music project is about and what you want to sell or communicate online is enough in most cases. Other useful information could be:

The story of your music project so far, and your mission and vision for it.

References of sites you like.

Elements that you feel define your business. Stuff that might be helpful for us to establish your brand identity could be keywords such as serious, relaxed, playful, and other adjectives.

Your competition and market situation.

All that information will make our brains start working regarding marketing ideas and design concepts.

2. Goals

You need measurable goals in marketing. Otherwise, it’s too easy to get lost in the middle of the day to day noise. Your website is an online marketing tool. Yes, a tool, a tool to achieve specific goals. Too many businesses get into building a site without any apparent purpose. That’s usually not a smart investment from a business perspective.

Some examples you say?

A specific amount of leads each month.

A particular amount of income generated through your online campaign.

A specific amount of sales.

Automatize projects in your sales or marketing process through a CRM.

Also, for the non-profit projects:

Getting a specific amount of donors for your non-profit campaign.

Getting a particular amount of monthly visits to make sure your ideas are getting heard.

3. Target

It’s essential for you to define the market segment you’re aiming for. You need to know exactly who you are trying to speak to and we need to know it as well to help you out. Sometimes that’s not an easy task to accomplish by yourself, and that’s something our marketing team will be happy to help you with during our Roadmapping session. Think about what your ideal customer is like. Age, salary, online behavior and many more details you need to consider before starting a design phase. These essential elements are called demographics and psychographics.

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4. Wireframe or site structure

The wireframe is the starting point for the design phase. You need to define what sections and content you want on your website. Don’t get too attached to it, however. As the design process starts, things are likely to begin transforming a bit (for better) as you and the design team start thinking about the site.

5. Technical specifications

In time and age, you can successfully develop a website in many different ways.

Your site is mostly static and you don’t need to update content that often? Jekyll and other Static Generators are great tools in those cases.

Your site has lots of complex functions? Maybe Wordpress might be the right tool.

Is there a specific payment gateway you must use?

You want a web app that has features nobody has attempted before?

Do you need to be PCI compliant?

Do you have any accessibility requirements?

You need to detail every feature your site should have, usually stuff you’ve seen done on another website (save those references as they will be useful)

For instance, Scrum, an Agile Framework we usually use, would suggest you create stories (fancy word for features). You should create stories from a client perspective, from an administrator perspective, and as many other roles your project might need.

6. Budget

We develop high budget websites and low budget websites. Sometimes great results are achieved with very low budget websites; it ultimately depends on your goals, strategy, and target.

You should define your exact budget and you should tell it to your web developer. If your budget is low, there might be a way to make it work by using a pre-built design, or approaching development in a modular way were you focus on the essentials for launch and leave the nice-to-have features for later.

7. Deadlines

Depending on whom you hire web development can take from 2 weeks to 6 months. It depends on the design process, development complexity, fast feedback and many other factors. So make sure your deadline is realistic. If you’re in a big hurry, you can always set up a landing page for capturing leads while the developer works on your site.

Final words

Taking your time to build your website specs template will allow you to better communicate to your developer your exact needs. Moreover, be wary of web designers who don’t ask the right questions. A website needs to have a defined purpose; otherwise, it’s time and money wasted.

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About Ivan Duch

Iván is a long-time musician and entrepreneur. Nowadays he merges his knowledge of attraction techniques, marketing and his passion for music to craft impactful online presences for the music industry.